1. He had been Archbishop of Dakar and apostolic delegate to the whole of French-speaking Africa. 2. Mgr Lefebvre had resigned from office on 28 September 1968, although his position as Superior should have lasted another six years, since he had been elected Superior General in July 1962 for twelve years. 3. Let us mention that on 27 June 1965, at Paray-le-Monial, Mgr Lefebvre had confided to Brothers Gerard and Bruno that he was thinking of founding a seminary. He said he was sure that vocations would flood in and that by forming traditionalist priests in this way, he would provoke a marvellous renewal of the Church. When the brothers reported this statement to the Abbé de Nantes, he was surprised and disturbed by it : was not Mgr Lefebvre the Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers? Now, his plan to found a seminary could only distract him and distance him from the obligations associated with his office, obligations which made it a duty for him to conduct such important struggles for the good of his Congregation, as well as in the Council chamber, in order to bring weight to bear decisively on the final decisions of Vatican II. 4. CRC no 108, August 1976, p. 2. 5. Conference of August 1972, extracts. Quoted in Mgr Lefebvre, Un évêque parle, vol. I, 3rd edition Dominique Martin Morin, 1976, p. 161-167. 6. Doc. cath. 1972, p. 1025. Letter by Mgr Mamie to his diocese, published 25 January 1973; Doc. cath., 1973, p. 195. 7. Letter to friends and benefactors no 4, 19 March 1973. 8. Letter to friends and benefactors no 5, 3 October 1973. 9. Liber I, p. 54. 10. Here is the account of the conversation between the Abbé de Nantes and Mgr Gand, published in the League chronicle for July 1971: "Mgr Gand, bishop of Lille, received me with perfect courtesy. He was astonished at hearing me express in all sincerity the same accusations that I make in my writings against the Reform of Vatican II. Such an attitude seems unthinkable to him. And yet, an hour of conversation effectively persuaded both of us that we shared the same Catholic faith. How could this be? Our disagreement lies somewhere in the thick fog of the conciliar controversy. Contrary to the position taken at Luçon, in Lille, to the extent that the "healthy pluralism" authorised by the Catholic faith allows, they do not regard us as outcasts … "However, Mgr Gand did not accept what I asked of him: that he recognise that priests had full liberty to celebrate the old Roman Mass in public, and that everyone had the right to teach their religion to children according to the old catechism. The fact that we are forced to follow the new Ordo and the new catechism is for us an unjust act of disciplinary totalitarianism and the confession of a disturbing ideological sectarianism. We see in it a proof of the heresy of the novelties imposed on us. In a remarkably agile defence, Mgr Gand ceded nothing: the wish of the Pope is that everyone abandon the old Missal, and the decision of the French episcopate imposing the new catechism manuals can suffer no exceptions. "I retained the impression that, were it not for the constraints to which he believes himself bound, Mgr Gand (and many other bishops) would prefer, as a matter of personal inclination, to treat all priests and members of the faithful with equal regard, without imposing on them a Reform which is far from perfect – something they recognise – and which causes us insuperable problems of conscience. But today the constraint falls from on high, absolute." (CRC no 46, p. 11 - French edition) 11. CRC no 107, July 1976, p. 1. 12. Letter to our friends no 2 of 1 April 1974, extracts. 13. Cf. CRC no 88, January 1975, p. 1. 14. CRC no 77, February 1974, p. 2. 15. Our Father will comment: "Well might they use the term sacrifice! They had never spoken of it before, never! But to win over the scrupulous priest and the faithful worried about orthodoxy, they admit that it is indeed a Eucharistic sacrifice. Yes. And afterwards, when these people have given in, the game will be over and they will never speak of it again!" CRC no 88, January 1975, p. 2 - French edition. 16. Communiqué of the episcopal assembly, Doc. cath., 1974, p. 1014. 17. CRC no 88, January 1975, p. 2. 18. Quoted in CRC no 90, March 1975, p. 1. 19. In this year 1996 in which we write, we can provide some clarification on this subject: Mgr Lefebvre could only have rejected the acts of Vatican II by officially repudiating the signatures he had placed at the bottom of all of the Council’s decrees. Now, right up to his death, he will never make such a retraction. As he did not dare to go back on his formal act of heresy by publicly acknowledging his tragic weakness on 7 December 1965, he will claim from 1975 onwards that he did not sign the declaration on Religious Liberty nor the constitution Gaudium et spes; cf. his reply to Jean-Louis Servan-Schreiber during the televised broadcast of 5 February 1978 and his reply to the review "Fideliter" in January 1991; quoted in CRC no 127, March 1978, p. 17 and no 284, August 1992, p. 17. The evidence of the facts is well established, beyond dispute, certain: Yes, Mgr Lefebvre signed all the acts of Vatican II, including these two decrees. See the photocopy of Mgr Lefebvre’s signature on the signature list of the declaration on Religious Liberty (below) and of the constitution Gaudium et spes, published by the review "Sedes sapientiae", no 31 (Winter 1990) and reproduced in CRC no 266, July 1990, p. 4. Regarding the ensuing controversy, cf. the decisive clarifications published in CRC no 297, December 1993, p. 29 and no 298, January 1994, p. 26.
20. CRC no 90, March 1975, p. 2. 21. In his conference, "Mgr Lefebvre, the one responsible. His life and doctrine" (L65, "Loyalisme français et catholique", cassettes 5 and 6), the Abbé de Nantes demonstrated that the doctrine taught at the French Seminary in Rome, on the almost absolute indefectibility of the Popes and on the assistance, nay inspiration! of the Holy Spirit preserving the apostolic See from all error, had prepared Mgr Lefebvre very badly to confront our apocalyptic times, which are characterised by the apostasy of the Pope himself. 22. Cf. Pour L'Église, vol. II, p. 291. 23. Personal correspondence. 24. That was pretty much his view since 1965. "Your Father", he had told Brothers Bruno and Gerard on 27 June 1965, "is wrong to criticise Paul VI. God could make the Pope die immediately. It is nothing for God to make a man die. Let us leave God to act." (Cf. Pour L'Église, vol. II, p. 318) 25. Letter to our friends no 8, 11 February 1975, extracts. 26. CRC no 89, February 1975, p. 2. 27. The Abbé de Nantes had already quoted this in his letter to Mgr Le Couëdic on 19 December 1965. Letter to my friends no 220, p. 9; cf. Pour L’Église vol. II, p. 236. 28. Letter to my friends no 198, March 1965, p. 1-2. 29. CRC no 91, April 1975, p. 1. 30. Letter of Brother Joseph to Brother Christian, 16 February 1975. 31. Each of these cardinals was a prefect of a Roman congregation: Garrone of the Congregation for Catholic Education, Tabera of that for Religious Orders, and Wright of that for the Clergy. 32. To our knowledge, Mgr Marcel Lefebvre has never written a detailed account of the interrogation on 13 February 1975. He has simply mentioned it in a few sentences: "Cardinal Garrone vehemently reproached me on account of this declaration [that of 21 November], even going so far as to imply that I was a ‘lunatic’ and telling me ‘that I imagined myself to be an Athanasius’, and this lasted some twenty-five minutes. Cardinal Tabera, going one better, told me that ‘what you are doing is worse than what is being done by all the progressives’ and that ‘I had severed communion with the Church’, etc." Account by Mgr Lefebvre dated 30 May 1975, sent to Mgr Benelli and to Cardinal Villot. Cf. Doc. cath., 1975, p. 741. 33. Cf. the current affairs conference of the Abbé de Nantes on 15 May 1975. 34. Roland Gaucher, Mgr Lefebvre. Combat pour L'Église, published by Albatros, 1976, p. 215-261. 35. Mgr Lefebvre did not contest the authenticity of the words reported in this transcription. However, he thought it was incomplete. Roland Gaucher in fact states: "According to Mgr Lefebvre, who has since seen this text, it is apparently missing one or two paragraphs." (Ibid., p. 137) 36. We will only quote short extracts from this transcription. When we omit certain passages, we will indicate this to our readers. The replies of the various contributors are frequently significant, but sometimes obscure. Moreover, this conversation did not develop along rigorously logical lines. 37. How can one not see in these words of Cardinal Garrone an allusion to the last lines of the editorial of the Catholic Counter Reformation "Frappe à la Tête!" of February 1975? 38. Now here is a surprising statement! No, the Abbé de Nantes did not go Ecône every week. Up until 1996, the year in which we write, he had visited the seminary at Ecône only once in his life, from 13 to 17 February 1975, precisely two weeks before this interrogation took place. One may suppose that it is an error in the transcription of the recording of this conversation; or else a lapse on the part of Mgr Lefebvre, who really meant to say: "He came several weeks ago." But it could also be an unfortunate expression used by the founder of the seminary of Ecône, that is to say an inexactitude. 39. One may suppose a transcription error. It is probable that Cardinal Garrone actually replied: "In any event, the causes are not located where you put them." 40. Quoted in Roland Gaucher, Mgr Lefebvre. Combat pour L'Église, published by Albatros, 1976, p. 215-261. 41. Cf. pages 373-378 of this volume. 42. Declaration by Cardinal Marty, quoted by the Abbé de Nantes in his current affairs conference of 13 March 1975. 43. On 21 February 1974, the Abbé Coache had written to the Abbé Barbara: "The worst thing is the question of the Mass. Mgr Lefebvre does not like the Abbé de Nantes at all (he told me so and states that he maintains no relations with him); however his position agrees with his own; in fact Mgr Lefebvre has indicated to me his point of view: it is better to have the New Mass than to have no Mass; to avoid losing one’s faith, it is safer to go to the New Mass than not to go to Mass at all… He does not seem willing to admit any discussion on this point." (review Forts dans la Foi, no 10, 1982, p. 29) In 1975 Mgr Lefebvre said in private that he was not convinced by the arguments put forth by the integrists against the validity of the new rite. On 23 November 1975 he wrote to one of his correspondents: "I do not deny the possible value of Father Barbara’s arguments, but they still do not convince me, nor the professors at Ecône. That is why I cannot share the conclusions of Father Barbara, logical conclusions if one admits the invalidity of the New Mass." (personal correspondence) 44. Cf. supra, p. 381. 45. Quoted in CRC no 90, March 1975, p. 15. 46. On the stay of the Abbé de Nantes at Ecône, see above. 47. We quote the passages we had previously omitted. See above. 48. CRC no 90, March 1975, p. 2. 49. CRC no 92, May 1975, p. 11. 50. CRC no 91, April 1975, p. 2. 51. CRC no 93, June 1975, p. 2. 52. Pour L'Église, vol. II, p. 281. 53. CRC no 94, July 1975, p. 1-2, extracts. 54. On the subject of this report which in April 1975 he claimed to be "laudatory", Mgr Lefebvre will confess a few months later: "In fact, I do not know anything, since this report was not communicated to me." (Conversation with Louis Salleron, 15 January 1976, quoted in Un évêque parle, vol II, published by Dominique Martin Morin, 1976, p. 69) The arrival of the Apostolic Visitors in November 1974 had in fact given him immediate alarm. In May 1975 he will write: "Convinced that this visit was but the first step on the road to our suppression, for so long desired by all the progressivists, and observing that the visitors had come with the desire to bring us into line with the changes effected in the Church since the Council, I decided to explain my thinking to the seminary. That is the origin of my declaration [of 21 November1974], written, it is true, under a feeling of indignation and no doubt excessive." (Account dated 30 May 1975 and sent to Mgr Benelli and Cardinal Villot; ibid., p. 26) 55. Doc. cath., 1975, p. 614. 56. Italian edition. 57. Current Affairs Conference at the Mutualité, 12 June 1975. 58. Letter to our friends no 10, 22 May 1975. 59. Un évêque parle, published by Dominique Martin Morin, 1976, vol II, p.29. 60. Doc. cath., 1976, p. 33-34. 61. CRC no 102, February 1976, p. 1-2, extracts. 62. Letter to friends and benefactors of 3 September 1975. 63.One should read in full one of the pages of the Catholic Counter-Reformation for October 1969. There the Abbé de Nantes gave this warning: "If we were foolish enought to imagine that we could save the Church by dragging it off with us into the adventure of another schism, we who are nothing, it is only ourselves who would irremediably be the losers." 64. CRC no 99, November 1975, p. 2. 65. Doc. cath.., 1976, p. 33. 66. Doc. cath.., 1976, p. 305. 67. Letter from Mgr Lefebvre dated 22 June, Doc. cath., 1976, p. 718. 68. A vertiginous fall! Here are the figures that prove it. In 1963, in France, there were 917 new entrants to the major seminaries; in 1971, 354; and in 1976, 155. As for ordinations, there were 573 in 1963; 237 in 1971; and 136 in 1976. Cf. Doc. cath., 1979, .p. 373. 69. CRC no 57, June 1972, p. 12. 70. This criticism and this denunciation of Mgr Lefebvre's schism were very badly received by the integrist readers of the Catholic Counter-Reformation in the 20th century. It is notable that the circulation of the latter had continued to rise until December 1973. At that time it attained 38,000 copies. Then it dropped, especially in this year of 1976. There were in fact numerous subscription cancellations when our Father openly took up a position against Mgr Lefebvre. 71. CRC no 107, July 1976, p. 1. 72. CRC no 107, July 1976, p. 2, extracts. 73. Pour l'honneur de l'Église, published by the Nouvelle Aurore, 1975, p. 20-21. 74. Subsequently, the Abbé de Nantes will often take the opportunity to forcefully denounce this fault of the founder of the seminary at Ecône. For example, in criticising a pamphlet by Figueras, he will allow his indignation to break forth: "How could Mgr Lefebvre let the dogmas, the holy mysteries of the liturgy, and the canonical discipline of Holy Church fall to the level of the pleasure or displeasure, the feelings and resentments of lay people without instruction, without knowledge, and sometimes even, as in this case, without religious faith and hence without shame!" CRC no 303, June 1994, p. 5. 75. CRC no 127, March 1978, p. 14. 76. In the regions of the infidel. 77. CRC no 107, July 76, p. 1-2, extracts; no 108, August 76, p. 1-2, extracts. 78. Doc. cath., 1976, p. 1056-1061. 79. Current affairs conference on 9 December 1976. 80. Doc. cath., 1976, p. 1056-1061. 81. As Mgr Lefebvre had not replied to the Pope, the latter wrote him a further letter on 29 November 1976 to notify him in particular of the publication of his letter on 11 October. Mgr Lefebvre then sent him a reply dated 3 December 1976; cf. Doc. cath., 1977, p. 229 and 254. 82. Current affairs conference of 9 December 1976. 83. Having been sanctioned with suspens a divinis in July 1976, Mgr Lefebvre had presented his attachment to Catholic tradition and faith as the justification for his disobedience towards Paul VI. It was at this time that he stated: "It appears to us much more certain that the faith taught by the Church over twenty centuires cannot contain error than that there is no absolute certainty that the Pope really is the pope. Heresy, schism, ipso facto excommunication, and the invalidity of the election are all potential reasons why a Pope was never really the pope or should cease to be the pope. In such a case, clearly a very exceptional one, the Church would find herself in a situation similar to that which she experiences after the decease of a Sovereign Pontiff. For, in a word, a very serious problem presents itself to the conscience and the faith of all Catholics since the beginning of the papacy of Paul VI. How is that a Pope, the true successor of Peter, assured of the assistance of the Holy Spirit, could preside over the destruction of the Church, the most profound and extensive in her history, in such a short space of time, something which no heresiarch has ever succeeeded in doing? To this question there will one day have to be a reply." Declaration by Mgr Lefebvre to Figaro, reproduced in Monde et Vie no 264, for 27 August 1976. 84. Text by Mgr Lefebvre, addressed to the seminarians at Ecône, dated 24 February 1977 and published in Le coup de maître de Satan, Saint-Gabriel publications, 1977, p. 42 ff. 85. Cf. Pour l'Église, vol. II, p. 138 ff. 86. Ibid., p. 203 ff. 87. The Abbé de Nantes will criticise this thesis of Mgr Lefebvre’s when the latter expounds it in his book Ils ont découronné in 1987. 88. CRC no 235, August 1987, p. 9. 89. CRC no 107, July 1976, p. 13-14, extracts. 90. Mgr Lefebvre, Ils ont découronné, published by Fideliter, 1987, p. 223-224. 91. CRC no 235, August 1987, p. 8. 92. Ibid., p. 9. 93. Ibid., p. 10. 94. Personal correspondence. 95. CRC no 110, October 1976, p. 15. 96. Quoted in CRC no 114, February 1977, p. 13. 97. CRC no 114, February 1977, p. 13-15. 98. CRC no 114, February 1977, p. 15, extracts. 99. CRC no 107, July 1976, p. 14. 100. Cf. ibid. and CRC no 114, February 1977, p. 6. 101. CRC no 120, August 1977, p. 8. 102. Chap. 4, § 2, no 4. 103. CRC no 109, September 1976, p. 2. 104. CRC no 131, July 1978, p. 13-14, extracts. |
